


In Step

by richard (MoastedRarshmallow)



Category: The Long Walk - Richard Bachman
Genre: ...of sorts, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Study, Friendship/Love, M/M, Minor Character Death, Porn with Feelings, stephen king give me gays challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 18:06:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17902967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoastedRarshmallow/pseuds/richard
Summary: Two boys, walking for their lives, find a patch of solace in each other.





	In Step

**Author's Note:**

> howdy everybody :D i've been gone for too long;( school is hard and yada yada yada. i've been working on this for far too long considering it was just supposed to get me back into the writing groove. anyway. i love the long walk garraty and mcvries deserve the world - and each other.
> 
> enjoy! comments n kudos make me heart eyes emoji

 Two feet on the ground. One heartbeat. A mind, a body – connected… disconnected. Awake, asleep. Hot, cold. Real, fake.

  _I wish I could lie down._

 Ray Garraty was an average sort of guy. No low grades, but not any stellar ones either. He could play baseball – but never went father than the high school dugout. He had a girlfriend, and she was beautiful, but he didn’t love her. He doubted he would marry her. If he were to die on this road, what would be for?

 He prayed for silence. Deep, still silence. All alone in the movie theatre-silence. A million feet on the pavement – _left foot, right foot, left foot…_ \- wasn’t loud, exactly, but it was intrusive. It seeped through his skin and sunk into his pores. Every thought that crossed his mind was set to a background of scraping sneakers. He knew his own feet were weeping pus into his socks. He knew his soles were wearing away. He knew he looked gaunt in the face, that every time the soldiers restocked their food supplies, he had too many pouches left full. He was on a death march, and as much as he tried to ignore it, the reality was becoming painfully clear.

 Where had McVries gone? The scar-faced boy. Squat, but strong, and faster than Ray would have thought. Different than anyone he had ever met. Strange, and wonderful, and made Garraty go hot in the face.

 McVries. Keep on dancing with me, McVries.

Stebbins, that old bastard, had caught a second warning. It didn’t fill Garraty with the soulless glee of  the days before. It had been four days. Four days without sleep. Without privacy. Without sanity. Without a fucking toilet to shit in, doing their business on the road like dogs.

 Over and over, Garraty asked himself just what the hell he thought he was doing. Why he signed up for this goddamn walk in the first place. Was McVries right? Was he suicidal? Or was he just trying to prove himself to the Major, his mother, or some higher power?

 Did he think he could win?

 He came up empty every time. What was the point of it all?

 

 To walk, of course.

 

 “Ray, my good man!” Pete McVries did his magic act, appearing out of thin air, clapping a friendly hand on Garraty’s shoulder.

 “Hey,” Garraty said.

 McVries looked terrible. A feverish sweat had broken across his face, his tanned skin was pale and limp around the eyes. He looked like he desperately needed a drink, though there was a full canteen at his hip. When he smiled, it was like a mannequin. Garraty shivered.

 “Drink something, man,” Garraty said.

 “Nah, I’m good,” McVries said, but for a split second, he looked petrified. Garraty swallowed hard.

 “It’s the end, isn’t it?” McVries said softly. “For me, at least. I wonder if there’s a Heaven.”

 “Don’t talk like that!” Garraty spat. “Don’t you fucking say that shit around me!”

 “My sister died when she was real little,” McVries continued, ignoring Garraty. “I mean, real little; ten months or so. She had a brain issue – something wasn’t wired right, I don’t know. But she didn’t have a coughing fit or anything. No dramatics. Mom just went to pick her up one morning and… cold baby. Dead baby. She looked just like a doll. Little eyes shut… just like a doll baby.

 “Have you ever seen a baby coffin, Ray? They’re like shoeboxes. Little shoeboxes made of metal. Painted blue and pink and fire-engine-red…. Whatever you like. I don’t want to be buried, Ray. I want them to burn me up, get rid of all of me. I hope my mom will be okay when I’m gone.”

 Garraty stumbled over words in his head, trying to get something out in response. McVries was giving up, so it seemed, and Garraty was filled with an animalistic panic.

 “If there is a Heaven, I hope there’s no God. What sort of sick fucker lets babies die?” McVries said. He nodded to himself, or Garraty, or the half-track and the buzzard soldiers crawling along in the road’s shoulder. It didn’t matter. He spread his arms wide, like he was conductor of the whole God-forsaken walk.

“My sister’s name was Lidia, Ray. Lidia Rose McVries.”

Somebody stumbled and fell. They didn’t get up.

_Bang!_

“Twenty-nine of us left, Garraty my dear,” McVries said. His words were gentle, sweet in Garraty’s ear. There was a thud in Garraty’s chest – he didn’t recognize it as his heartbeat at first.

 “Have you ever kissed a man, Ray?” McVries asked. It was so casual, so normal, for those words to leave Pete McVries’ mouth. Garraty choked on his tongue.

 Playing doctor… slap to the face… _shame…_

 “I don’t have any reservations, dearest Garraty,” McVries purred. “I’m here for a good time, not a long time. Boldness is a terrible thing to squander.”

 “What pretentious shit are you always quoting, anyway?” Garraty managed to spit out. He felt dizzy. He felt like a feather and an anvil. He felt like he was tripping balls.

 “All in the vault,” McVries said, tapping his forehead. “One hundred percent organic, locally grown, farmer’s-market-fresh bullshit.”

 He laughed; hysterical, insane, hyena-high.

“Will you kiss me, Garraty? Will you be my Jan?” McVries asked. “My muse?”

 Garraty looked at him, saw the honesty behind his eyes. A look of hunger laid behind, in a deeper crevice, but Garraty turned away.

 “Why me?” He whispered. “Why now?”

 They crunched over another stretch of road. With a stab of fear, Garraty realized how numb his legs felt.

 “Why not in another lifetime?” McVries said wistfully. “Why not you and me and a cottage by the seaside?”

 “You’re delirious.”

 “Probably,” McVries said. He had taken Garraty’s hand without him noticing. Garraty didn’t pull away. Human contact had become an expensive luxury.

 Suddenly, Garraty was sure they had been walking for years. A million years of one foot in front of the other. Was this Hell? What had he done to deserve this? He’d rather burn in a pit of sulfur than take another step, but still he continued on, McVries’ fingers curled around his own.

  A younger Walker, couldn’t have been older than fourteen, rushed past them. How he had found the strength to run, Garraty had no idea. But the dazed look on the kid’s face told enough of the story: he was running to his death.

  _Bang!_

Brains on the path in front of them. Garraty tried to sidestep, but his wobbly legs seemed intent on a straight path. Instinctively, he retched, but there was nothing in his stomach to come up. The kid still had his eyes open.

 “Twenty-eight,” McVries murmured. Garraty was suddenly freezing. He wished, again, he wished upon a hope upon a dream, that he could rest. McVries would be there too, and they would stretch their gummy limbs in front of a crackling fire…

 “McVries? Hey, Pete?”

 “Hmm?”

 “Did you mean what you said?” Garraty asked, trying to steady the shake in his voice.

 McVries looked at him for a moment. Garraty saw a raw mixture of sadness and joy, and something else. Admiration? Lust? It was only there for a second, and as the wheels in Garraty’s head spun rapidly to figure it out, McVries leaned forward.

 Garraty felt himself leaning in, found himself pushing against McVries’ lips. Frantically touching the other boy’s chest, pulling his hair, tasting the putrid, unwashed taste of his mouth. Garraty stumbled, forgetting to move, and McVries pulled him forward.

 Faintly, he thought that this probably made him gay. That if circumstances were different, this embrace wouldn’t be rushed and desperate. He realized that he felt more of a connection to McVries in four days than he had with Jan in a year. He realized he was going to die soon, so what did it all matter?

 “Ray, I…”

 McVries whispered into the soft shell of Garraty’s ear, nonsense about love and want and dreams.

 _I probably love you,_ Garraty thought, but he didn’t – couldn’t –  say it. The hook of shame pulled at his gut and even as he bucked into McVries’ hand on his crotch, he felt the humiliation of a long-gone threat drape over him.

  _“Do you want to walk naked in the streets, Ray? Do you? Listen to me!”_

“I want… I want to…”

 Insistent as he was, as bold as he was, McVries pressed further into Garraty, Garraty dizzily pushing back. He felt whole as his body was crumbling beneath him. There was the grip of humiliation, of wonder, of lust and greed as they continued on the road as a unit. Before the Crowd, the soldiers, the other Walkers and the eyes of God and whatever other pervert was watching.

  “I’d be – shit, Ray, I wish we could do this the right way,” McVries babbled, his hand clutching the inside of Garraty’s waistband.

 “S’okay,” Garraty said. “It’s okay.”

 A different embrace now, forehead against forehead, huddled together to keep safe from the storm. Garraty gingerly kissed the inside of Pete’s neck, stubbly and strange against his lips. Pete mumbled something brass, probably vulgar, but Ray stopped listening to his voice and started listening to his body. McVries arched inward, towards Garraty’s crotch, grinding against him the best he could while they continued to walk.

 “Ah… I fucking –“

 “Just shut up, McVries,” Garraty whispered sweetly.

 _Where did this person come from?_ he thought. _When have I ever spoken to_ anyone _like this?_

Quiet, thoughtful Ray Garraty, turned to some vulgar queer in the few days he’d known McVries. He would have thrown his head back and laughed if he wasn’t occupied.

 Garraty gasped quietly when McVries finally found his cock. He’d never paid much attention to the other boy’s hands, but it was obvious now how calloused and strong they were. With his other hand supporting Garraty’s back, McVries began to stroke him in a long, slow movement.

  Garraty swore profusely into McVries’ shoulder, hiding his red face from the world. He rocked forward, hard, into McVries’ hand. He’d never felt more vulnerable in his life, and yet he continued, some sick part of him enjoying the idea that a million people would see his first handjob.

 Pete knew what he was doing. The deep, painstaking movements turned quick and lively in a few short seconds, his thumb and first finger teasing the tip of Garraty’s dick. Garraty tried to bite back the moans that threatened to spill from his lips and ended up sounding like a choked mouse. McVries grinned at him, obviously aroused himself.

 It was clear Garraty wasn’t going to last long. His teenage hormones had been screaming for release since the second day on the road, but he’d refused himself in the name of dignity. Mixed with his new attraction to McVries and the human need for closeness… The hot coils in his stomach tighten.

 “You’re good, babe, you’re so good,” McVries muttered praise into the side of Garraty’s cheek. In an embarrassing flash of jealousy, Garraty wondered if he had ever spoken this way to Pricilla, his old flame.

 Ray cried out, finally allowing himself to make noise. McVries’ hand closes around his shaft as his underwear dampened, hot and sticky.

 “Fuck,” Ray said. “You –“

 McVries released him gently, so tenderly Ray could hardly stand it. His legs wobble and if McVries didn’t have him securely held with his other hand, he might have taken his ticket right there. How they both had the strength for this was beyond him.

 In his usual prurient fashion, McVries held his palm to his mouth and licked it before washing it away with canteen water. It was only then Garraty realized the wet spot on McVries’ own jeans – for some reason, that made him laugh.

 “We’re quite a pair, eh, Pete?” he asked. McVries glanced down and snorted.

  He good-naturedly clapped Ray on the back, gently massaging his shoulder in a strange, sweet way. “We sure are,” he replied. They continued down the road like that, in a comfortable, temporary silence.

_Left foot, right foot, left foot…._


End file.
